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After several months of hard work, we are over the moon to announce that on June 28th 2018 we officially launched London’s first Food & FoodTech Innovation Hub UK.

In partnership with Huckletree, the Hub is located within Huckletree West, White City. The objective of the hub is to create the first FoodTech community in London by bringing foodpreneurs together with tech entrepreneurs and helping them grow their business through collaborative resources and network.

Having a ‘go-to’ destination for Food Innovators will allow us to support foodpreneurs through resources and network and foster innovation through meaningful interactions with established food organizations. We have already in agenda Startup ‘Tech Bootcamps’ to help entrepreneurs create truly digital brands and unlock growth through online sales, as well as Food-Related Workshops and FoodTech Meetups.

Besides a shared workspace dedicated to food companies, the hub will feature a media studio to develop multimedia content, as well as a retail-facing platform (later on next year) to sell new products from resident startups and showcase their latest innovations. We are looking for registered companies with fully-developed products as well as a team in place to join the hub.

To learn more about it and apply visit http://hub.forwardfooding.com

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As we promised, the event kicked off with a big announcement. Marking the start of a new era and aligning the model we have been following for the past year, we are thrilled to introduce you to the rebranding of ‘Crowdfooding’, now Forward Fooding.

Forward Fooding is the world’s first collaborative platform for the Food & Beverage industry. We believe entrepreneurship can make a difference in solving some of the biggest issues in our current food system. Thus, combining entrepreneurial acumen with the infrastructure and expertise of corporates can actually lead to bring more meaningful innovations into the hands of consumers.

To learn more visit www.forwardfooding.com

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The event continued with four great speakers. The first session featured Sue Nelson who presented her latest book “FoodTech UK”. Then Saskia Hoebee, Food and Agri Startup Innovation Analyst at Rabobank, presented FoodBytes! London, their pitching competition for Food and Foodtech startups that is coming to London on September 12–13th. We then finished up with an interesting panel discussion from the title: ‘How FoodTech can fuel the Food Revolution’. On the panel, along with Sue and Saskia we had the great company of Severine Balick, VC Impact Investor in Food and Agtech (Matador Ventures) and Chris Fung, Food/Foodtech investor & advisor.

To recap some key learnings of the panel: one of the biggest challenges the industry is facing today is bridging the ‘culture gap’ between corporates and smaller companies. As a result of this gap, they all seem to agree that in order to create a brighter future of food corporates may need to fully embrace more collaborative models.

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In addition to these top-notch speakers, we brought some of the most innovative UK food and drinks entrepreneurs to showcase their products including edible cocktails from Smith & Sinclair, brewed with bread Toast Ale, chilli-based natural soft-drinks from Nix&Kix, great French wines from One to Wine, gluten free macaroons from Nourish, artisan breakfast and canapés delivery from Elysia, salmon skin crisps from Sea Chips, long drinks with a craft spirit from Long Flint, beetroot ketchup from The Foraging Fox, Japanese-flavoured Kinomi nuts, hummus from surplus vegetables from ChicP, healthy avocado pot from Onist, Chapman drink and sauce pots from Dvees and vegan & high protein crackers from iRaw.

Finally, thank you to all the ones who made this day possible, including our host ‘Huckletree’ and their whole team, our fabulous speakers and ‘partners in crime’ and of course, all the ones who came to the event despite the stunning London’s weather and the World Cup game…we really appreciated it! 🙂

The biggest thank you goes to the whole Forward Fooding’s team and all the people who have supported us in this crazy journey including (in random order) Max Leveau, Valeria Siguelboim @Riccardosalladini, giulia pieri, Melanie Dawn Weir @Suenelson @DavidBooth Mike Lee to name a few.

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This article has been written by Alessio D’Antino